Welcome to another edition of From the Forums! We'll run one more just before Christmas to get everyone into the festive spirit (should you celebrate such holidays, of course)! It's always a busy time on our community forum, but momentum is still rolling strong with Windows Phone 8 pushing in multiple markets. So what's been happening on our forums?

First on our list of attack is the Lumia 920 and its teething issues. Nokia has continued to experience problems with its Lumia hardware, particularly the 800, 900 and 920. The latest flagship from the company is causing owners concern with random reboots and failing completely, rendering the Windows Phone useless.

DaytonaGTS has received the Portico update but has reported more issues surrounding the restarting, which the update was supposed to address.

"The most anoying times is when it will go into a reboot loop, I will see the ATT screen then the NOKIA sceen followed by the ATT screen and so on from a few times to 15-20 minutes sometimes ending in freezing and haveing to soft boot it. I was really hoping Portico would fix this but not even close, so far it hasn't rebooted as often but very simularly to the past."

Are you experiencing said issues with your Lumia 920, particularly if you've loaded the update? Be sure to engage with other members of our community forum in the "920 still rebooting after Portico update" thread.

Protico update extending battery

As well as threads and posts containing complaints from owners that detail issues with rebooting, even after the latest Windows Phone 8 update, we've also go positive experiences with battery life being extended and improves for users to annihilate through heavy usage. Our own George Ponder has also joined the gang to reveal battery improvements.

"Noticed an improvement in battery as well, usually I got 14 hours heavy - moderate use, now so far I've gotten 19 hours and still 40% with checking emails, facebook, Netflix for 25 mins and a few games and app downloads all on WIFI."

The Portico update addresses a number of bugs and issues, as well as adding a handful of features and improvements. Head on over to the "Portico tripled my battery!" thread to add your thoughts. Have you noticed an improvement in battery life through use?

I guess I have been lucky with my 920. I haven't had any issues with my phone other than the light sensor kept fluctuating but since the update I haven't had that problem.
As far as battery life it does great. I just configured it as I did my 900. So I work 13-14 hour shifts and use my phone regularly throughout the day and when I get home I have 30-50% left. So I'm very pleased with my 920.

My wife's Lumia 920, which was freezing and or rebooting 2 to 3 times a day prior to Portico update, has frozen twice since I updated her phone Thursday morning. It apparently happens when she opens Nokia Drive + Beta in her car using Bluetooth. My own 920, which only froze a handful of times prior to, hasn't frozen at all since my Wednesday update.

Cant say my battery is any better. Not horrible, except if I actually use my phone I need to charge it through out the day.
Some nice little tweaks over all, but I was hoping for a bit more. I can only hope they keep up with doing little updates like this frequently. Better than waiting for big updates once a year or so.

I had quite a few crashes prior to Portico when using Nokia Drive +. The day before the update it was pretty much guaranteed that if I launched the app, it would crash my phone within a minute or two. Haven't tried post updated, but the random freezes seem to have gotten a little better. I've only had one in a few days now and that was overnight during charging (non-wireless). That seems to be aproblem people are having.

Me to. No restarts but one awful issue due to which I did a hard reset, which went bad and I had to Flash the phone. But the very next day Portico became available and I obviously had to Flash it again. No issues with Portico at all. The screen dimming issue solved with the dark room trick.

I've had this issue. Had to switch back to my focus because my 920 got stuck in a reboot loop where it just shows the art logo then the Nokia logo soft reboots won't fix it and so far as I can tell I'm gonna have to send it in to Nokia and have them fix it...it sounds pathetic but I'm like distraught over the inconvenience.

With all the issues being reported in the forums w this update, I think we should be careful with what we wish for. My 822 works flawlessly and gets great battery life (almost 48 hours w moderate use). Of course I'll update when it gets released, but am hoping MS irons out the kinks before pushing the release to VZN devices.

I have the Lumia 820 I use it for hours and hours a day. It is flawless. I have NEVER had a freeze or a reboot or anything. Nokia Drive+ Beta works beautifully. I hope you Lumia 920 uses will get the fixes as my experience has been great. I still wait for Protico update but...I can't wait.

I never had the reboot problem, luckily, but the battery problem is still a major issue! I have hardly any Live Tiles running in the back ground and yet that was a big selling point for me when switching from the iPhone! I still love the phone, but hoping they figure out away to extend battery life before I switch to the Samsung ATIVS Phone

No issues so far with update. Battery does seem much improved, also not sure if it is update or my power adapter. Was using my power adapter that came with Samsung before to recharge. Was only getting about 10 to 12 hours before out of power. Now using adapter that came with 920 and that seems to have helped as well.

No freezes since update. Had two freeze when first got phone. Never had reboot issues.

I've still been freezing. Been talking to Nokia Support on Twitter. They went through the normal "disable background apps" and "close running apps" spiel. Then they told me to reset?! I'll be diving into the forums soon

The biggest problem with the 920 seems to be dust in the FFC and proximity sensor. When it gets under the proximity sensor the screen switches off during phonecalls or notifications.
I wonder why this major fault hasn't been reported on by WPCentral

I haven't had the reboot issue before or after the update, so I guess I'm good to go. As for the extended battery life, I'll find out when I return to work this Sunday.
On a side note, anyone else notice the volume leveling feature added in the audio settings? It boosts the volume as well, and works great for me.
Finally, I'm truly happy with a phone. No Android or iPhone,...no buyers remorse. A nice upgrade from my Lumia 900.

Never had a reboot on my 930. No problem other than the auto brightness setting badly light the screen in dark environment, but then I just keep auto brightness disabled. Kind of weird that so many 920 owners are experiencing perfect operation while so many others are having constant reboot or freezes. Have specific applications and system settings, as opposed to the hardware or OS, been ruled out as root cause? It may be worth while for all forum posters to provide a list of their installed apps and system settings along with a yes/no on reboots in order to identify any commonality. I have Bluetooth disabled since day 1 for example, whereas it appears from comments that several owners trying to use Bluetooth are having reboots. Just my two cents.

I'm thinking you might be right. I use the Bluetooth alot, pretty much since day one and been having the bricking/freeze/restart issue. I turned off the Bluetooth last night and haven't had any issues yet.

I'm having a terrible time with my battery. My last phone was the Razr Maxx and I could abuse the heck out of that phone and the battery would last me 20+ hours. Obviously the 920's battery isn't as robust, but I'm finding that I get about 8 hours of light to moderate use out of the phone. If I want to get through a full work day, I have to keep a charger nearby.
I'm not playing games, mostly web broswer or web apps. I use wifi when available and turn it off when not needed. Screen is set to the lowest brightness. Bluetooth turned off and I don't have any background apps running. I'm not sure what else I can do but I'm getting frustrated and will probably have to return the phone. It does me no good keeping it fi I can't use it.

yeah I have the same problem. I am thinking of letting the phone run without the lockscreen so that it would stay awake at night. Tonight, I am going to test that. I hope Nokia or Microsoft will fix this.

I haven't had the reset problem. My only problem was rapid battery drain a few times. I think the phone needs to be turned off from time to time in case one of the programs is hung up wasting battery life because once the phone battery ran out and turned the phone off, it has worked like normal which is 48 hous per charge. Not a heavy user.
Battery seems about the same for me since the update. I had the weird light sensor dimming hiccup right after the update but I turned Auto off. When I turned auto back on, the problem had gone away.

No issues with freezing or spontaneous reboots since I bought it. Battery life is impressive. I drop mine on the pad at night, take it off in the morning, and I'm good for the day. Portico added a few nice tweaks.

First 920 had the soft spot so to speak on the top just right of the 3.5mm jack. Plastic would make a clicking/popping noise when pressed. Second would freeze up constantly and needed to be reset. Funny thing is every phone whether it was a 900 or 920 I had was blue. Now I have a red one and no issues.

Even after the update I'm still plagued with horrible battery life. I have yet to get more than 6 hours usage on a 100% charge since purchasing my 920 on 2nd day of availability at ATT. I went in to ATT today and they gave me the number to contact their warranty dept. so I can replace mine. Really looking forward to a new proper functioning 920!!!

My Yellow Lumia 920 has ahd freezing issues before the update. I almost exchanged it in the store for another one. But the only thing that stopped me was that I could exchange it for red, back or white in store & not yelllow as they do not carry them.
After the update the freezing was till there & i regretted not having returned it as I was pat the 14 day period. Frustrated, I did a factory reset last night & it's been 24 hrs so far without freeze. Also Iwas urprised to see that the battery meter was still showing 98% @ 7.30am after it was removed from the pad around 1.00am. I still think this battery reading is not very accurate.
Anyway, a couple of hours ago I logged into my Skype and set it up since I was not expeiencing any freezes. What happened is the phone has been a little warm & battery did drain rapidly without any use. Drops from 75% to 37% or so in 2 hours of no use ast all. So, I just rebooted it about an hour or so ago to see if it solves the heat issue & stops the drain, so far it has worked. In the last 40 minutes or so, the phone is cool to the touch & no battery drain seen so far. Wondering if Skype was doing something in the background. Now I am going to install Wahtsapp & see what happens. Hope it doesnt screw up the batteryagain as well.

After reading all of the issues users are having..I don't think I will be installing the portico update...my 920 is great right now (no issues except the battery life.pretty sad)..will wait until the next update

How long should the L920 battery last. Fully charged 7am by 7pm its 5%left. Several short phone.calls few txt and checking emails general phone use. Same as i did on iphone 4 and that battery never died.

Oh well as much as I tired dude there is no way I am moving from iPhone to windows phone 8. My wife had a windows phone 7 and bought a windows phone 8 and its is the worst phone ever!!!!!! The syncing is the worst, I mean the is good, but don't try to move music over its hell and u will find yourself just saying I give up. If Microsoft does not change how there phone syncs with a computer like Zune they will lose a battle they started. I was going to upgrade from an iPhone to a new windows phone, but heck no!!!!!!! If I can't sync or play the music I want and in which order I like, then I am sticking with an is that will allow me todo so. Microsoft screwed it up not using Zune because that was the easiest way to sync the windows phone with my music. We just though it would be just as easy with this new version. Microsoft just lost me as a consumer, they can blame it on there lack of usability software with there computer for the lost of this sale. If my cant seem to sync her song as she wishes she is moving to iOS too

What are you talking about you can sync your music with windows media player and its very easy you just create play list and click sync its very very easy . Try google first before you say this reply. Further, I have an iPhone as well as my wife and syncing music its nightmare. Just tell me how you can sync music from iPhone to your computer . No way you can do that unless you have third party software iPhone is sucks due to the stupid restriction that they made . Copying contact is nightmare as well.

I think turning off unnecessary tasks in the background elongated my battery life dramatically. I've found that iheartradio and tuneinradio are the worst offenders. Turning maps off is also a good idea.

strongly considering this phone as im just a bit tired of the issues that come with android most days...my one concern is battery life...i send/recieve around 200 texts (ish) a day...check the facebook 5-6 times...tweet pretty regularly...occasional google/bing search..youtube sometimes (rarely)..once in a great while ill sit down for 30 minutes and read an internet article or tweet but thats rare..and now that ill have a proper phone ill most likely start using apps like foursquare on occasion...so with that in mind, what should my battery life be like...if i get 15 hours to a charge is about what i need...any more is awesome but 12-15 is ideal

After the Portico update my youtube stop working. Error "You need to install an app for this task. Would you like to search for one in the Store?" Select Yes or No. Selected Yes, and answer: Sorry, no apps found. Youtube worded fine before the upgrade. What I do know is that if you selected the Desktop Version under Internel Explorer Website preference then Youtube will fail. If you selected Mobile Version under Internet Explorer Website preference than Youtube will play. Did anyone test this or you have their Youtube playable in both Preference? Thanks.

POSSIBLE SOLUTION - I had freezing once/day first week & was about to return mine for exchange (I LOVE THIS PHONE!), but a fellow WP user told me all I needed to do was eject the SIM card & re-install firmly (as if the SIM card was not in well enough). I did it, skeptically, and proceeded to TRY to get the phone to freeze - I had about 12 apps running at once + IE, everything. It wouldn't freeze and hasn't in 2 days! I have about 5 more days in my 14 day exchange window with AT&T, so I'm hoping the SIM issue fixed it. (Sounds too simple to be true, but so far,so good)...

So far all portico has done for me is improve picture quality a little, its now causing apps that worked before to freeze, phone randomly restarts by itself, battery seem to drain alot faster. Regret ever installing it on my phone.